by David Geer
Contact the author at geercom@windstream.net
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The KarmetiK
Machine Orchestra

Some musical robots are meant to lead a band such as the conducting
robots that appeared in this column called “Baton-Wielding Bots Command
and Control Orchestrated Wonders!” (October ‘10). Others are meant to
follow the lead of human conductors. Such is the case with the KarmetiK
Machine Orchestra, which performs in the Valencia Art School’s Walt Disney
Modular Theater. It is an ensemble of Indian-derived robotic musical
machinery made of real instruments, solenoids, and scraps from junkyards.

Under the co-direction of Ajay Kapur and Michael Darling, the Orchestra performs original music for a live
audience with the aid of programming and the hands of
the robotic instrument’s creators who are students in the
CalArts’ Robotic Design for Music and Media class.

The GanaPati Robot

This image from a live
performance of an iteration
of the GanaPatiBot
drumming robot makes it
look almost like a full, self-operating drum kit.

The GanaPatiBot is
a unique musical robot
the class builds fairly
regularly, having built
and re-built one four
times already from
scratch. “One iteration
of GanaPati had a
budha head that
moved up and down
while the automatonic
drum played,” explains
Ajay Kapur, Orchestra
Leader and Instructor.
One example of
GanaPati used a
disassembled sculpture
and a star with drums
on each point to
produce its scintillating
sounds.

The GanaPatiBot
was originally designed
by both Kapur and
Darling. The metal
work was completed